Soyuz Descent Module visit

Hi Guys, it’s Grace again in the year 2019!!!

It feels like ages since I started writing this blog (nearly a year ??) sorry I haven’t quite finished my blog on the big oz trip ✈️??? but anyway … Today my Mum and Dad surprised me by taking me to Cardiff Museum to see Tim Peake’s Soyuz Descent Module.

On 18 June 2016, the Module carrying Tim Peake was safely brought back down to Earth from the ISS, touching down in Kazakhstan ??.

The module had enough space for 3 people but it looked tiny! It must have been scary but exhilarating. We went on a VR experience of the whole thing – departing from the ISS and descending through the atmosphere to Kazakhstan. It was amazing!

When Tim Peake was in space in 2016 I followed him on TV and Facebook to see all the fun and experiments he was doing. He even ran a marathon for Sport Relief (which must be really hard in space). I sent Tim Peake a question on Facebook – what is your favourite thing about space? In school the next day I had a reply stating, his favourite thing was floating around and being able to look back down on Earth. Amazing.

The Tim Peake exhibition is only on in Cardiff until 10 February 2019 so get down there quick.

More from Canberra!

For our second day in Canberra we decided to get up really early (even Mum) to go and search for wild kangaroos ??

We headed out to Mount Taylor. It was definitely worth getting up early as nearly straight away we saw loads of kangaroos …

We carried on walking right to the top – 856m. The views over Canberra in the beautiful morning sunshine were just lovely.

In the afternoon we headed to The Australia War Memorial in Canberra.

Then we managed to fit in more swimming, this time at Uriarra Crossing on the Murrumbidgee River.

Poor Gareth got attacked by two dogs and slipped and hurt himself on the rocks. Apart from that though we had great fun again swimming and splashing about.

When we were back at the house, me, Jemima, Gareth and Owen played a game they called Spotlight. From the top decking one person would hold the torch and shine it round the dark garden to catch the others in the spotlight. Once caught you had to join the search party to find the others. I really liked playing the game.

See you soon guys – Grace.

Off to Canberra

Hi guys, it’s me Grace again. On Thursday we headed off to Canberra.

In a tiny plane with only twenty rows of four seats (tiny) it was awesome we did some blogging and looked out of the window it was amazing.

When we got there we hired a car and drove to our cousin Thomas’ house. Thomas was very excited to see us! After we had a drink we went to canoe on a lake nearby. Tom took the photos (including the selfie!).

When we went back to Thomas’ house he went to the shop to get some sausages. I was out the front of the house playing with my ball from the Easter Show when Gareth (Thomas’ son) came home from school and stared at me and I stared back. He asked me who I was, and I was like er er er um ah when my mum came out and said who we were. He’d forgotten we were coming but soon remembered. Shortly after Tom came back and then my other cousin Owen came back from school and then later still my other cousin Jemima came home celebrating that it was the start of the Easter Holidays! After it a bit we all decided we’d go swimming in Kamba Pool. We swam from one side of the river to the other. It was amazing. I really enjoyed it.

Everyone said me and Jemima looked the same.

Bye guys, see you soon.

Easter show

Hi guys it’s me Grace again. On Wednesday we went to the Royal Easter Show in the Sydney Olympic Park. It was really good. We went into the Spotless Stadium first and watched motorbikes do stunts like the superman.

After that we went to look at show bags. Basically they are promotional gift bags you buy with lots of stuff in. There were loads of different ones. I bought a chocolate bag and an Oreo bag. I also bought a sprinkles unicorn bag that had a pink fluffy backpack, pencil case, scented book markers, gel pens, highlighters and a secret diary with lock and key for just $28 (about £15) – bargain!!

There was so much stuff to see. There was a dog show, wood chopping (Haiah), food stalls, cake decorating competitions – just too much to list even.

After that we went to the fair. It was amazing and had loads of rides. We went on the log flume, swings, paragliding ride sort of thing (I’ll explain later), pirates of the Caribbean adventure fun house, break dance (like a twister but better), big Ferris wheel and a crazy coaster. The paragliding ride was my favourite. I went on with my Dad first and it was amazing so I took my Mum on it so I could have another go.

It was really really fun – I hope we can go back to the Easter Show one day.

Bye guys, see you soon.

Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb

Hi guys it’s me Grace again. The one thing I really wanted to do if we visited Sydney was climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge – all 1332 steps!!

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is the largest single span arch bridge in the world – 503 metres long, 134 metres high and 49 metres wide.

It was so long, so exhausting and so exiting let me tell you about it. It was a lovely morning in Sydney not too windy not too hot but just right. We went in and got ready – our group was all from the UK which was really funny. The others were all from London way and we were the only ones from Wales. Anyway we got our gear on and I was right at the front – it was amazing. Our instructor/guide was Sean. He was very nice and I would like to go up again with him. When you climb up you don’t go all the way over the arch, you climb up the right side of the road, cross the middle at the very top and then come back down the left side of the road if that makes sense. It took 3 1/2 hours just to climb over the bridge and about 40mins to put on and take off everything like a jump suit, head set, unclip the hat, the handkerchiefs and people’s sunnies/sunglasses/glasses. Once we’d finished with all the equipment we put it down a chute and had a well earned ice cream. Here’s our video from the top!

After that we went to build-a-bear in Sydney it was amazing – it was in a shopping centre called Myers. I bought Cookies a pair of ripped jeans, a top with Australia stuff on it and a wallabies kit. I got Cookies’ pawsport stamped to show he’s visited Sydney, Australia.

In the evening, we went to a chocolate cafe and met up with my Dads school friend Nicola who now lives in Sydney.

Bye guys see you soon.

Bondi Beach

Hey guys it’s me Grace again. On Monday we went to Bondi Beach. No ferries today, we got there on a bus. My Dad went for a walk along the cliffs while me and Mum hired a bodyboard to go in the sea.

We caught loads of waves and we fell off quite a few times. Mum fell off more than me! While we were in the water I noticed a seagull near our towels and stuff on the beach. The cheeky thing tried to grab my teddy (Cookies) so I ran out of the water screaming at it to shoo it away! I still had the bodyboard attaches to my arm with the string and ended up waving it at the seagull!

Later in the day, we met up with my cousin Luke for a meal and then went back to his apartment for a hot chocolate. There was an amazing view from his window! I’m looking forward to seeing my other cousin “big” Grace later in the week (“big” Grace is Luke’s daughter).

Bye guys, see you soon.

Taronga Zoo

Hi guys, it’s me Grace again. On Sunday I went to Taronga Zoo in Sydney – it was AMAZING!

We had to catch a ferry again to get there …

We saw loads of animals including Koalas and Kangaroos. They were two of my favourites. The Koalas looked so cute and fluffy. The Kanagroos were very laid back and when I was walking back to my Dad one hopped right across the path between us.

In the zoo there were these weird looking birds wandering around everywhere that looked a bit like turkeys frightening my Dad! When me and my Mum went into the Australian Enclosure, I pointed at an Emu which are quite big and said to my mum ooh look at that. When my mum looked there was one of those weird birds next to the Emu and she thought that was the Emu!!

We also went to see the seal show which was AWESOME!

There was one called Max who was young and excited that he could jump off the high bit. There was also Bondi who was found on Bondi Beach after being bitten by a shark – eek! There was another seal called Diego who was found on San Diego beach – I’d love to go there soon. One of the seals did a backflip at the end and soaked everyone. At the end Max pulled a string to reveal an MCS banner telling us all to eat fish caught safely and not harm seals.

We went on a simulated plane to view Tigers in Sumatra.

We saw two tigers – Kartika and Kembali. There are less than 400 Tigers left in Sumatra. They are endangered as lots of the forests have been chopped down for Palm Oil. The zoo were encouraging people to use sustainable palm oil and there was a simulated supermarket where you could send emails to companies asking them to be more environmentally friendly.

I sent 6 emails to companies including Mars and Snickers to ask them to use certified sustainable palm oil to help keep the tigers habit from being destroyed.

Bye guys see you soon.

Manly Beach

Hi guys it’s me Grace again. I went to Manly the other day it was so cool I loved it, me my mum and my dad caught the ferry to Manly …

It was kind of choppy but it wasn’t to bad tho when we got there we thought that it was tiny like this …

but it was actually huge the sea was blue …

It was lovely and warm and I got a snorkel to go swimming …

After the beach we went to an Italian restaurant and they did 0.5m pizza, 1.0m pizza, 2.0m pizza and just when we thought things couldn’t get any big we saw a 3.0m pizza!

We caught the ferry back and when we were on the ferry it was sunset. These were some of the photos I took.

Overall it was a great day. Bye guys see you soon.

The Journey (eek)

Omg we are in Sydney eek this is a picture of me at the airport.

This is a picture of me,my mum and my dad on the airplane.It was so cool there was tv’s in the back of the seats and remotes in the armrests so you could play games and watch films.

This is the airplane we went on. It was a 23 hour flight with a stop off in Dubai and we saw the biggest skyscraper in the world the Burj Khalifa and now we are in Sydney.

We saw the Sydney Tower in a Chinese friendship garden. The Sydney Tower is so big any way I got to go now bye bye.

18 days till Ozzie

Hi guys it’s me Grace again sorry I haven’t been here for a while you now packing getting stuff ready it is so stressful aarrgghh . Any way I can’t believe it’s 18 days I’m so excited eeeek #nearlyready ????. Right sunglasses ? check ✅ clothes check ✅ ?????? teddy’s ? clothes check ✅ ?????? games for the plane ✈️ and headphones ? check ✅ flip flops ? check ✅ my teddy’s ( cookies ? the build-a-bear ? and blueberry the purple monkey ? ) check ✅ sorry checking through everything yep ? got everything good (phew) we’ll got to go bye ?